Norway’s cross-country skiing star Johannes Hösflot Kläbo has won the Tour de Ski for the fifth time and thus secured the sole record in the anniversary edition of the stage race.
In the final “mountain stage” of the 20th Tour in Val di Fiemme on Alpe Cermis, the record world champion achieved twelfth place in the day’s victory of his compatriot Mattis Stenshagen to stay ahead in the overall ranking.
“You can only take your hat off to Kläbo,” said national coach Peter Schlickenrieder on “ZDF”: “Such consistency of success is impressive and inspiring.”
As expected, the tall and powerful Kläbo had nothing to do with the day’s victory on the final climb, which was up to 26 percent steep and involved climbing around 400 meters over 3.6 km.
Given the 1:23 minute lead he took into the final, the 29-year-old no longer had to push himself to the limit. At the finish, the man in the golden jersey was 58.9 seconds behind Stenshagen, who came ahead of the Frenchman Jules Lapierre and Emil Iversen (Norway).
The best German was Florian Notz in 18th place. Friedrich Moch, who reached the podium three times on the Cermis stage and came second overall on the tour two years ago, once again had no chance and only came 46th in the daily ranking. “I actually feel good and have always shown good races here,” said Moch on “ZDF”.
Kläbo won the Tour de Ski for the fourth time in the past five years; he missed 2023/24 due to illness. Until now he had shared the winning record with the Swiss Dario Cologna. The only German winner of the tour is Tobias Angerer, who was in the lead at the premiere in 2006/07.
With Kläbo’s sprint victory on Saturday, Jan Stölben caused a huge German surprise and became the first DSV runner to reach a final in nine years. With sixth place, Stölben ticked off the Olympic standard. On Saturday he held on bravely and came “up” in 51st place.